Written by Dave

Day 78 – August 14 – 46 Miles, 2,640 feet climbing (North Woodstock, NH to Fryeburg, ME)

We stayed last night in North Woodstock. It’s a cute little town with a quaint main street. This morning we had brekkie on the main street at Riverside Coffee. We didn’t think that there was much more to North Woodstock than what we found and couldn’t really figure out where all the people revelling in town last night had come from. Well, this morning, once we crossed the Pemi River and rode to the other side of town we figured it out. East North Woodstock is full of big hotels, fancy resorts, the usual fast food chains and a good dose of schtick souvenir tourist attractions. I guess a lot of folks staying out in the east come into the old town for dinner and drinks. I’m glad we stayed where we did – it was nice being able to walk to everything even if our hotel was on the lesser side of fancy.

Once we crossed the river this morning we had 14 miles uphill to ride to reach the high point of the day at Kancamagus Pass. It took us a while to clear “schtickland” but traffic was not too bad and the temperatures were comfortable. There was also a nice shoulder and a bike path that we rode for a short spell. The climb was pretty gentle all but for the last 2 miles. In fact we didn’t need out lowest gears until the very steepest bits of that last section. There are a couple viewpoints looking out over the White Mountains and because we were in our “short day, go slow mode” we duly stopped to take a look.

The White Mountains are certainly scenic but to be honest, it reminded us of the lower foothills of many a Cascade Mountain ride in Oregon. This sort of makes sense when you consider that we summited today at less than 3,000. The Cascade passes are much higher. Plus in the Cascades you have the added bonus of a good number of volcanic peaks to look at as you near the passes. The White Mountains are about 100 million years old whereas the Cascades are closer to 3.5 million years old. The Cascades have more jagged bits in large part because they have been eroded less than the much older White Mountains.

We had a short ride today so we took our time coming off the pass. We made a couple lookout stops and then took a nice diversion ride through the Albany Covered Bridge on Passaconaway Road. There are a lot of odd names in these parts (odd to us that is), such as Passaconaway. Many are derived from the Pennacook Indians, indigenous peoples who inhabited the region at the time of colonization. Passaconaway was a Pennacook chieftain from the 1600s.

At the end of Passaconaway Road we popped out on the east side of the town of Conaway. We missed most of town and debated on riding back or simply moving on towards our stop in Fryeburg. Eventually we chose forward (no surprise really as what self-respecting cycle tourist goes back?). On the way to Fryeburg Nancy spotted a license plate for me to inspect, and then Chris spotted it and also pointed it out. Thanks guys, but to be honest, I would have had to been blind to not see it for it was sitting right in the middle of the shoulder – still it is nice to have the full Chris-crossing team on the license plates case. We were about 5 miles from the Maine border so I hoped it would be a New Hampshire plate. It was a Maine plate – but I’m not disappointed really as it cleaned up pretty good and I don’t have to be so keen eyed searching tomorrow. For the record, I have plates from about half of the states on this trip – I think that’s enough souvenirs for me.

Speaking of states and plates, close to Fryeburg we crossed the Maine state line. I counted wrong the other day. Maine is our 13th state, not 12th. Though, if we don’t count Ontario, then Maine is our 12^th state. It is also our 3^rd state in three days and our last state for the trip. Today we ran out of states, tomorrow we run out of road.

We are staying at the White Gables Inn here in Fryeburg.  It is very nice and comfy – I’d put it near the top of the places we’ve stayed at on this trip.  We are the only guests here tonight, but I expect they fill up on the weekends.  It appears to be an old house from the 1820’s that has been nicely maintained or restored.  The innkeeper has kindly agreed to serve us breakfast at 7am tomorrow, instead of the usual 8am, so that we can get on the road early to hopefully beat some of the traffic in the morning.  I expect it will probably be one of the nicest breakfasts we have had on this trip.  All of this luxury sets us up for a great last day.

We’re working with the inn keeper here at the White Gables Inn to pick the best route into Portland. We have either 50 or 57 miles to ride and that’s it, the end of the road! I told Chris that since this is really his trip, he has to write the blog tomorrow. And yes, I told him that we wanted big thoughts and grand epiphanies, none of this “we had oatmeal for breakfast stuff…” We’ll see how he does, no pressure mate.